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Imagine a chessboard – with your usual 8 by 8 = 64 squares. Say the squares are one inch by one inch each. Now imagine rectangular blocks that are one inch by two inches each. So, any rectangular block can cover 2 adjacent squares on the chessboard.
You have to fill up the chessboard with the rectangular blocks without any rectangle spilling outside the board. They are allowed to overlap on each other though.

What is the minimum number of rectangular blocks required to fill up the whole chessboard? That is 32 of course.

Okay, now imagine that I tore off one of the corner squares on that chessboard. And I went ahead and tore off the corner square that is diagonally on the other end of the board. So, now I have a chessboard with two farthest corner squares missing.

Now, tell me how many minimum rectangular blocks are required to cover the whole board (that has only 62 squares now). You are allowed to overlap but cannot spill outside the board.

Even trickier – what is the minimum number of blocks required if you CANNOT overlap or spill outside either?

Headed to Raleigh. My flight back is tomorrow at a very early hour. So, I am going to send the puzzle today…
Remember the rules – message me on Facebook with your answer. Do not write on the comments section so as to give others a chance to solve it without peeking into possibly right answers.
This happened to me on Tuesday night. I was coming back from a customer dinner at night headed home. I never use the car GPS since I know I know my way around in Atlanta. However, midway thru my drive back, I noticed something interesting on the GPS.
The display on “Distance left to Destination” would count down as you would expect every mile but ever so often, it would jump up to a higher number. So it would read 16… then go down to 15 … then go down to 14 … and then jump to 20!!! It would again start counting down for a few miles and then jump up again!!!
Can you explain what was happening?
Here is a hint: Every time it would jump back up to a higher number, it would jump to a number higher than the previous high number.

One more week. One more flight back home on Thursday. One more puzzle.

Following is a rather poor attempt on my part to draw 12 matchsticks forming a tic-tac-toe shape. Here is what you have to do. Move only THREE of these sticks to new positions and form three identical squares.

My flight is very early morning tomorrow and a very short one. I intend to sleep in flight. So, here goes the puzzle for this week’s trip.

Somebody wrote

62 – 63 = 1

Obviously it was a silly mistake. Here is a question for you. Can you move (to a different place) only ONE of the digits above and make the equality hold true?

I was reading a book on cocktails and one thing led to the other – suddenly I was on Wikipedia reading about Christopher Columbus. Learnt three things that I had not the faintest clue of –

1. Who was the first European to come to America?
2. How many voyages did Columbus make to America?
3. Which part or parts of modern USA did Columbus visit?

Check out wikipedia for the answers. Let me know if the answer surprised you too…

What do you think this map represents? What does the red and blue color signify?

Returning from Salt Lake City. Today’s is a geometry puzzle.

In the picture below, the shaded rectangle is 4 cm by 2 cm. Can you find the radius of the circle?

To follow up on the last map puzzle….

What do you think this world map represents? Think in terms of what ties US, Burma and what I think is Liberia…

This puzzle comes after I read something my friend Shilpa Daiya had posted.

Look at the following map. Can you guess what the map is about? Can you guess what the colors stand for?